Are polls clogging up Insiders?

This afternoon (GMT) I logged into Insiders to see if there were any interesting discussions and was greeted by this:

Someone had spent the last 20 minutes dredging up every poll they could find and voting on them.

Now I'm all for excersising democracy and these polls do sometimes provide interesting results, especially polls such as my last one exploring how drunk you actually have to be to find the remains of someone else’s room service meal an irreststable dining option - and if you haven’t voted on it, then do so here Hotel Corridor remains. Do they make you hungry? and now. Then come back for the rest of this diatribe...

Hello again, and welcome back. And I trust visiting and voting on my corridor morsels poll indicates how useful polls can be, how the opportunity to vote completely confidentially provides revealing results about the transient hotel community in which we all spend so much time... But, but... well the problem here is that a vote on a poll is a qualifying activity, and all such qualifying activities bring the thread to the top of the leader board. Now commenting on a thread, even an old one can lead to some very interesting discussions reminding us of the opinions held and espoused a few years earlier, can sometimes prove very prescient, other tInes, not so much. But voting on an old poll doesn’t do that. It just adds another figure to an old set of figures.

So why is someone voting on every poll they can find? Simple, if you’re new, or you’ve just found out about the gamification leaderboard you might decide to rack up your score, and every vote on a poll counts, no matter how old the poll, no matter how irrelevant - what on earth is the point on voting on the 2013 Plat Premier qualification poll, now, in 2018 when Plat Premier has completely changed since that time and is now the name for the 75-night level? And voting on the the 2014 Plat Premier qualification poll too? None, other than to earn insider points - and I don’t have a problem with that, Marriott decided to have them as part of the site and we will live with it, so it’s not the points-chaser I’m criticising, it’s the MRI programming that means any poll once voted upon goes straight to the top of recent activity and a points chaser can unwittingly clog up the entire board of recent activity meaning highly valid discussions, questions, blogs and guidance gets shoved into the bowels of the site, effectively stifling it.

So I ask you all to vote on this poll. Whoever clogged this up today, I don’t criticise you, you’re playing a game Marriott has set, but the outcome of that is the clogging of the activity board. You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last, heck I think all of us here have at some point chased some points to get somewhere near the top of the daily activity. The gamification is here to stay, and as long as it does this will happen again, and again, and again. But really, really should a simple vote on a poll propel it right to the top of the activity board? I say no, and ask you to vote yes in my poll. Why? Reverse psychology? Badly set question that doesn’t reflect the tenet of the rant? Well, yes to the latter, but more relevantly, this has been raised with the mods before and they advised nothing would change so your vote isn’t going to make any difference. So I thought it would be a good test of a loaded question to get the result I want.

So, your participation please -

Are polls clogging up Insiders Activity boards?

Vote now and vote YES - unless you want to admit you’ve been lobotomised, that is!

29 total votes You cannot vote on this poll

Yes, I agree with every word, look at that screenshot, recent content is buried by this!

24

No, I have been lobotomised and think all the vertical green lines are preferable to recent content

One thing I do whenever I create a poll is to set a date when voting ends. It makes is much harder to dredge up old polls which have virtually no relevance any more.

In case anyone wondered how to do that, click the "Advanced Options" at the bottom of the poll. Here you can set when the poll starts and ends.

So all you poll creators, let's help prevent old polls from clogging up Insiders. Set an end date for voting. Your other option, once you feel there have been enough votes, go in and manually close the poll. Your fellow Insiders will thank you.

When I first became active on insiders about a year ago, I realized I did this one day. I came across a poll, voted, and at the bottom of the page there were "similar content" or something to that effect links... so 30 minutes after going down that rabbit hole I make it back to the home page I see that everything I had just been looking at and voting on was now the first 10 or so things listed... I was like "oh-oh, that's going to be super annoying to a bunch of people"

Anyway, the site has a ton of flaws the way it operates, we all know that, for people who don't set an expiration date on their polls there should be a default of 30 days so it doesn't happen.

There should be some sort of automatic expiration. Thirty days might be too short unless it's something like "Who are you rooting for to win the World Cup" or some such. Doesn't help to vote on that after the event is over. Any poll over a year old is likely out of date, so maybe 6 months might be a decent default. I usually set something around 30-60 days for the end date. That's generally more than enough time for most polls.

Arguably, the whole propping up the queen thing recently is going to cause a problem at Insiders. People trying to get fake points to get to the top of the leaderboard -- doing whatever they can to score points (bulk liking, adding friends, meaningless contributions). May scare me away - ive earned all 900 or so fake points I have but the recent top 10 circle jerk has got me not wanting to sign onto Insiders as much combined with the BS its causing, such as people doing the aforementioned.

I've had similar thoughts. The whole points thing is ridiculous, and then this Queen thing made me cringe. I couldn't finish reading the posts and that little coup was by some of the people who's opinions I respect here the most. Not even sure the beneficiary of the project appreciates that kind of thing... she'd be too gracious to say if she didnt.

If I never see another screenshot of leaderboards or point totals it'll be too soon.

It's human nature to get rewarded for doing something - I get the fake allure of points/leaderboards. I respect the top 10 and have seen each of their contributions affect me - they are the most active and names resound well, which can lead to more post likes, marked as helpfuls, etc - but that should not underscore their contributions because they are vast.

I bask in different glories (if we are going with this renaissance festival, medieval theme) - I take more pride in what i've done -

You're kidding me with that comment right? My comments arent about her worthiness or accomplishments or contributions, it's not about her at all.

My comments are about a group of mom idle age men stressing about who has points and how they go them, then ganging together to do exactly what they say they are against- gaming the system.

That stunt was completely ineffective and I'd be offended if I were Pluto and a bunch of guys chose me as the vehicle for them to lash out at another member or members.

If you really wanted to accomplish something you should have piled your combined points on the person whom you were trying to knock out, because dont play games, were all smart enough to know it wasn't about elevating anyone, it was about knocking them down a peg.

I must say I didn't even know that it gave points and badges...but wondered why all of a sudden I would get one...lol

PS...I don't dredge for polls but sometimes I do vote on things in which the expiry date has long past.Would it be possible to have 1 section of the forum for polls only which would not affect the rest of the site?

This clogging seems to be a more recent phenomenon. I think it's likely newcomers to the forum that may unwittingly be causing the clogging. As a new Insider, I was hesitant to speak up much at first. Polls seemed like an easy way to "do" something on the forum. I did a couple every day or so and also did a bit of browsing through different threads, but I can see how easy it would be to get carried away. A few weeks back, I logged on and saw the multiple green lines of doom had pushed away all the recent discussions. I took a few minutes to find the most recent conversations and tried to add something to them in order to restore relevancy.

I am puzzled by those who are attempting to gain Jive forum points. I mean... these points don't do anything for you. No free nights... No suite night awards... Nothing. Nada. Zilch! Those who want Jive forum points are certainly welcome to enjoy them for what they are, however it simply looks like endless grinding away at some esoteric goal that awards no real benefit. Trust me. Coming from a someone who spent waaaaaay too much time as an gaming nerd, I look back at how my time could have been spent in more meaningful ways. It can suck you in and seem like a reward in and of itself. Perhaps there is some satisfaction for having achieved some new level or some mission. And if that works for you, great!

Me. I've wasted too much time on games. Now however, I've decided to focus on the things that make life better.

Edit: Added "" to my gaming nerd experience.

Edit: Ok. I guess I didn't. Why is the word o.n.l.i.n.e. stricken from the record?

You make a really great point betterdays. A lot of newcomers don't realize that voting on poll after poll fills up the latest content window. It's likely that is at least part of the issue. We've asked several times for changes to the way that part of the site works with no success. Other than setting an "end date" or having the creator of the poll (or the communitymanagers) manually close old polls, it's likely to continue to be an issue.

I really like your approach, when you realized what had happened and tried to fix the problem by commenting on recent conversations. Well done!

As for the gamification of the site (points, badges, etc). That's been debated several times as well. Since this particular poll was about polls, I'll leave the discussion on that topic for another thread.

A lot of the polls don't make sense anymore, because they get old, things change. So there needs to be a line in the sand where they no longer come up if they are aged a certain amount. I'd pick six months...